Shortly after
returning home from
my week of fame in Indonesia last month, two Wall Street
Journal reporters contacted me by phone from Indonesia, where they were
covering the tsunami story. Interviewing me for over two hours, these inquisitive
journalists were interested not only in the testimony I had given in Indonesia's
most prominent trial, but also in the Internet work in which I'm involved.
They later called my former State Department supervisors and continued for
several weeks to send me numerous emails asking very detailed questions about
my life and work.

Having assumed
the article would be buried somewhere in a middle section, I was amazed on
Tuesday morning to find both a long article and a drawing of myself published
on the front page of this most distinguished paper! Besides the obvious
hook of my testimony as a presidential interpreter in the terrorism trial,
the two journalists and their editors may have been impressed with my openness
and my deep commitment to building a brighter future for us all.

Because my
testimony revealed high-level government deception, I fully expected that
parts of the article would question my integrity. Yet this very well-written
piece also provides numerous quotes and comments which are quite supportive.
I am particularly pleased at the inclusion of three empowering websites
I manage: WantToKnow.info, weboflove.org,
and momentoflove.org. Many thanks
to Andrew Higgins and Jay Solomon for all of their great work in researching
and writing this piece. I've highlighted key sections in the copy of the article
below, though you can also see the original at either of the links given.

My deepest,
unwavering commitment in life is this: "I will do my best to choose what's
best for all of us." I also continually open to divine guidance in
all aspects of my life. I know that it is these deep life intentions which
brought me to the front page of the Journal and continue to bring countless
miracles and blessings into my life. For those interested in more, you can
read a short, inspiring essay titled Simple Keys to a Fuller Life (
https://www.weboflove.org/keystolife2
), which I wrote several years ago as an expression of gratitude for all I've
been given in my life. I have no doubt that as we get clear on our
deepest intentions in life, every one of us can make a big difference
in the world. Thank you for caring, and may you have a wonderful day and week
ahead!

JAKARTA,
Indonesia -- Frederick Burks believes in UFOs, communes with dolphins,
runs a Web site that promotes conspiracy theories about U.S. complicity in
the 9/11 attacks and thinks Washington may have had a hand in blowing up bars
on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

And, until last October, he had the ear of the world's most powerful man:
The 46-year-old California resident worked as an interpreter for George W.
Bush in the president's dealings with the leader of Indonesia, the world's
most populous Muslim nation.

Now Mr. Burks has popped up in Jakarta as a star witness for the defense
in the terrorism trial of a fundamentalist Islamic cleric. "He has some
anger but he's a nice old man," says Mr. Burks of Abu Bakar Baasyir,
the 68-year-old preacher the U.S. believes was behind the 2002 Bali bombings.
The cleric is also believed by the U.S. to be the leader of a regional terrorist
network linked to al Qaeda, but he strongly denies that and, in an earlier
trial in 2003, an Indonesian court cleared him of directing a terrorist outfit.

Mr. Burks's
testimony, delivered last month in a south Jakarta court, turned the former
White House interpreter and sometime psychiatric nurse into a national celebrity
here in Indonesia. He appeared on TV, spoke at universities, and was featured
in magazines and newspapers. His rock-star aura had strangers stopping him
on the street when he traveled here to testify from his home in Berkeley,
Calif.

But he's considerably less popular these days with his former employers in
the White House and the State Department, who praise his linguistic talents
but are mighty upset that he has been spilling details of supposedly confidential
conversations. "He's gone off some deep end," says Stephanie Van
Reigersberg, his former boss. During the years that Mr. Burks was paid to
whisper into the president's ear, she headed a State Department unit that
provides interpreters for State, the White House and other branches of the
U.S. government.

Speaking
to the Jakarta court in fluent Indonesian, Mr. Burks described a secret 2002
meeting between a U.S. presidential envoy and Indonesia's then president,
Megawati Sukarnoputri. He said the American had demanded that Ms. Megawati
secretly detain Mr. Baasyir and then hand him over to the U.S. This demand
preceded the Bali bombings and, says Mr. Burks, shows that the U.S. had it
in for Mr. Baasyir even before his alleged crimes and suggests a frame-up.

Karen Brooks, who served as Mr. Bush's director for Asian Affairs on the
National Security Council until last year and attended the meeting, says Mr.
Burks was present as an interpreter. But she and the U.S. embassy in Jakarta
deny his claims that the U.S. pressured Indonesia to hand over Mr. Baasyir.
(They won't say what the meeting was about.) Ms. Megawati hasn't commented
publicly but did attend a party in Jakarta to fete Mr. Burks during his recent visit.

Worried that Mr. Burks's testimony might upend Indonesia's most high-profile
terrorism case, the prosecution has sought to undermine the American's credibility
as a witness and grilled him in court about drug use and oddball writings
rhapsodizing about a dead dolphin. (A previous attempt to prosecute the cleric
fizzled: the only charge that stuck involved immigration violations.) Mr.
Burks, who grew up in New Jersey and California, says he has experimented
on occasion with ecstasy and peyote as part of his "spiritual journey."

"I was in disbelief that this guy was an interpreter for the president
of the United States," said prosecutor Salman Maryadi after the hearing.
"Considering his condition, how could he interpret for the leader of
the world's sole superpower?"

The U.S. government seems to have taken much the same view. For over 15 years,
it used Mr. Burks's linguistic dexterity -- he also speaks excellent Chinese
-- despite his refusal to sign a confidentiality agreement. Never a full-time
government employee, he regularly worked on contract for the State Department,
securing interpreting gigs with President Clinton, Mr. Bush and a number of
lesser officials. He learned his Indonesian while living with a family on
the island of Borneo in the 1980s, picked up Chinese during a teaching stint
in China and, after training as a nurse in Florida, mixed interpreting and
nursing.

Ms. Brooks,
the former White House Indonesia expert, remembers Mr. Burks as the "most
talented interpreter I've ever seen" but says she's flabbergasted that
he never signed a confidentiality pledge. "You'd think we'd be vetting
these people," she says. The State Department is supposed to take care
of security clearances and confidentiality pledges for its staff and for contract
workers if they are to have access to secret information.

Confronted with a dearth of qualified speakers of foreign languages -- frequently
noted as a serious problem by officials and others since 9/11 -- the U.S.
government has scrounged for talent, with few questions asked.

Mr. Burks, a former high-school math star whose friends called him "Freddy
Whiz-o," says he never hid his views or enthusiasms. He says he had a
mandatory, low-level security clearance, mainly a testament that he didn't
have a police record, but declined to sign a confidentiality pledge. He says
he also balked at filling in lengthy forms required to get secret clearance
because he'd have had to confess to having twice taken ecstasy. "I couldn't
lie," says Mr. Burks.

Ms. Van Reigersberg, who headed the State Department's interpreting division
until last year, when she retired, says that while Mr. Burks wasn't bound
by formal legal constraints, he was bound by professional ethics not to divulge
what was said "by either a president or a policeman." She says she
feels "mystified" and "indignant" now that he has decided
to blab. Ms. Van Reigersberg remembers Mr. Burks as "very nice and very
intelligent," and so good at his work that the State Department paid
him to help train other interpreters. She says he was always an "interesting
character" but says she never knew much about his quirky Web musings.

While
working as Mr. Bush's Indonesian-language interpreter, Mr. Burks set up several
Web sites, including momentoflove.org, weboflove.org and WantToKnow.info.
After 9/11, he began collecting and then posting documents he believes show
that parts of the U.S. government knew an attack was coming and may even have
been complicit in its execution. "I'm sometimes labeled a conspiracy
theorist, but I'm not," he says. "I'm someone who can handle dark
energy, the really ugly things that are going on behind the scenes, without
getting too upset."

When he made an illegal holiday trip to Cuba in 1999 and got hit with a $7,900
fine, he says he told the State Department he hadn't realized that Americans
were barred from going to Cuba. He kept his job, and found a lawyer to fight
the fine. He's still waiting for a court hearing where he can contest the
penalty.

He even survived a controversial foray into last year's presidential election:
He posted allegations on his Web site that Mr. Bush used a secret listening
device in meetings he had attended with President Megawati and most likely
had done the same in debate with Sen. John Kerry. His says he got a reprimand
from his boss at the State Department. (Asked about Mr. Burks's claims, a
White House official described them as "nonsense.")

Shortly after that Web posting, he left the State Department's translation
service. He says he quit when a new supervisor insisted that he sign a pledge
not to divulge any information obtained while interpreting.

The son of a Methodist preacher, Mr. Burks says he initially rebelled against
his upbringing by resisting his father's antiestablishment take on life. He
now describes himself as a "spiritual activist" but says he's still
"more a Republican than a Democrat" on economic questions. In early
2001, he says, a friend turned him on to a film purporting to expose a plot
by the government to conceal the existence of Unidentified Flying Objects.
"The information blew me away," he says. But, he adds: "I hesitate
telling people quickly about this because they'll say I'm a nut."

When President
Bush traveled to Bali for a meeting with President Megawati in October 2003,
the State Department had another interpreter lined up, but the White House
insisted on having Mr. Burks. Ms. Brooks, then the National Security Council's
Indonesia expert, says she personally requested that he get the job because
he was so good and "Megawati loved him."

On the morning the two presidents met, Mr. Burks took an early morning jog
on the beach and came across a dead dolphin, an encounter he later described
in an e-mail he sent to friends and colleagues. He says he knelt down and
"opened to the spirit of this dead dolphin" and "felt its presence
with me...and the joyful presence of the entire school of living dolphins."
Their "loving presence," he says, penetrated the traveling White
House in Bali and made senior U.S. officials act in a strangely friendly way.
The White House declined to comment on that.

The defense
team for Mr. Baasyir, the accused terrorist, came across Mr. Burks's name
in an article in an Indonesian newspaper that mentioned his allegations of
secret U.S. pressure to hand over the cleric. Ahmad Wirawan Adnan, a defense
lawyer, decided to send a message asking him to testify but considered it
a long shot. "I thought we would have to sweet-talk him and persuade
him. He said yes immediately."

The legal team, which hoped to generate maximum publicity for its star witness,
worried that the local media might be distracted by the tsunami two weeks
earlier. They weren't and gave Mr. Burks's visit and his views blanket coverage.
"I had trouble making a schedule for him he was so busy," says Mr.
Adnan, the lawyer.

Mr. Burks
says he enjoyed the celebrity treatment but is now glad to be home so he can
get back to work exposing coverups. "I was put here on this planet for
a purpose," he says. After his return to California, he dropped in
a mailbox a letter he had been given by Mr. Baasyir, the alleged terrorist
ringleader, for delivery to President Bush. It reads: "You will be punished
with horrific torture in the afterlife, but you don't have to lose heart because
there is still an opportunity for you to save yourself from Allah's really
horrific torture." It then encourages Mr. Bush to convert to Islam.

Contacted by telephone in jail in Jakarta, Mr. Baasyir expressed gratitude
to and admiration for Mr. Burks, describing the former White House interpreter
as a man whose "main goal is to uncover all of George Bush's lies."
Mr. Burks's willingness to testify, said the cleric, is a "peculiar"
form of "bravery." Mr. Burks says he's flattered by all the attention
but will be upset if it turns out Mr. Baasyir really is a terrorist: "I
would feel bad. I would be shocked...I'd definitely regret having done this."